Izkhaael faced his men as they stood silent, waiting for the word.

  "Comrades, at ease. The city is ours."

  His grenadiers howled and raised their muskets in devotion. Let slip these starving beasts. Tomorrow they starve; today they feast.

  Izkhaael could pace himself. Officers had first pick, and he had supplies hidden away. Buried where no one would think to look.

  He found a haunting beauty in victory—beautiful like a house consumed by dancing flames, but only when you stood outside watching it burn.

  The streets had fallen quiet. Empty.

  Except for the weeping. The defeated always wept.

  He hummed under his breath. As long as he hummed, the sound wasn't there. At least not until they started screaming.

  Then he walked until the sound was gone, and there was peace. At least a little.

  Izkhaael studied the Jamayyid houses as he moved through the conquered streets. Their doors were lined with mosaics—geometric patterns that seemed to repeat forever. Bags of spices hung drying outside windows, filling the air with cinnamon, clove, cumin, and peppers. It reminded him of his uncle's shop back home.

  Cashmere rugs that once welcomed weary guests now bore bloody footprints from conquering soldiers. The street's stone drainage grates sat dry and empty.

  A laugh echoed from around the corner.

  He sighed and followed the sound. A regular soldier stood swaying at an alley's mouth, wine bottle pressed to his lips. He couldn't hold it straight—red liquid dribbled down his chin. With a curse, he hurled the bottle against the cobblestones, glass exploding in all directions.

  From deeper in the alley came a scream.

  Izkhaael approached carefully. At the alley's dead end, a girl with dark hair pressed herself against the wall, arms crossed over her chest as if that alone could protect her. In the soldier's hand gleamed a knife. His face was flushed red, grin wide and predatory.

  Nothing good would come of this.

  Izkhaael bit his lip. If he walked away, her screams would echo in his mind for days. He looked down at his pistol, knuckles white as he gripped it. He cocked the weapon and tucked it into his coat, then set his eyes on the soldier.

  "Soldier, attention!"

  The regular turned, eyes webbed with broken blood vessels. "You're Nesh. I don't take orders from fucking Nesh."

  "No, you take orders from your commanding officer. Me." Izkhaael's voice turned deadly quiet. "If you touch that girl, you'll get worse than a court martial. I'll gut you myself."

  The man laughed. "Sure. You can gut me after I have my fun."

  Izkhaael drew his pistol and pressed the muzzle to the soldier's temple.

  "Don't fucking test me." He twisted the barrel deeper into the man's skull.

  The soldier shrugged. "Merely a jest, sir." He smiled as he met Izkhaael's eyes, then took a slow step backward.

  Suddenly he dropped to one knee, grabbed a fistful of broken glass, and hurled it at Izkhaael's face.

  Izkhaael pulled the trigger.

  The recoil bit into his hand. Glass scratched his cheek, missing his eyes by inches. Behind him, the girl's voice broke into sobs as she fell over his boots and wept. The recreant’s brains decorated the alley wall in a red spray.

  The girl prostrated herself, chanting one word over and over in her native tongue.

  Izkhaael said nothing.

  He stared at the corpse slumped awkwardly against the wall, folded like discarded parchment. Smoke from his pistol barrel turned from white to clear. In the growing puddle of blood, his reflection watched him. He stepped through it, distorting the image. When the ripples faded, his face didn't return.

  Looking out at the streets, his chest tightened. All it would take was one witness, one mouth willing to talk. The weight of Solmoran military justice would see him hanged for killing his own man.

  He lifted the girl from the muck and pushed her toward the street. She looked frantically in every direction.

  "Leave," he said simply.

  She bowed her head and disappeared into the crowded streets. Izkhaael turned down another route, glancing over his shoulder. No one had seen. No witness to testify to his crime. The dead soldier would be just another casualty of urban fighting.

  Following the scent of smoke mixed with incense, Izkhaael made his way toward the temple district. Jamayyid built their places of worship beneath the earth, hidden from the sky they believed had forsaken them. With luck, Manzonéz hadn't found this one yet—he was a good soldier but a prodigious looter.

  The entrance was embedded in the corner of a housing block. Limestone steps carved directly into the earth descended farther than his eyes could penetrate. Jamayyid tunnels and caverns covered vast areas beneath their cities, with cisterns and storage chambers hidden from daylight.

  Beside the entrance sat a bronze bowl filled with honey-scented candles—a far cry from the greasy tallow stub beside his cot. He took one, lit it from a still-burning torch, and began his descent.

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  The walls and floors were embedded with intricate mosaics. As candlelight flickered past, the images seemed to shift and dance, telling the Jamayyid creation story. The central mosaic depicted Ma'jim of Ermün slaying the goddess Kur'za—his own mother. Manzonéz had told him the tale once.

  In essence, his mother lied to him, so Ma'jim killed her for it. From Kur'za's corpse, humanity crawled from her cold womb. They built houses from her bones, bound tools with her sinews, and grew crops from her rotting flesh. The irony was that Ma'jim never revealed what the lie had been—only hinted that it lay beneath their feet.

  Shadows crept behind him as he descended. Cold seeped through his uniform. His eyes slowly adapted to the darkness, revealing statues of Jamayyid angels haunting the corridor. They had no faces, only forms—almost human, but unmistakably not.

  Water dripped down the walls into cisterns below, as if the city's tears were seeping into the earth. The stone amplified every sound: distant prayer bells, echoing chants, a single word repeated endlessly.

  He entered the final chamber to find it empty—no chanting, no bells, no people. Just silence.

  The chamber housed a library. Scrolls from centuries past lined the walls, and he scraped dust from their surfaces with reverent fingers. Perfect. His brother would love these—he was studying to read ancient Ithrani. Izkhaael stuffed his sack until it bulged with valuable texts.

  He searched the various caverns for anything that could be sold. Nobles paid high prices for exotic artifacts, if you could find the right broker. By the end, his sack contained silver candlesticks, sacramental wine, scrolls, rare incense, and something Manzonéz had taught him about—hashish, a Jamayyid medicine to "heal the mind," as his friend put it.

  The candle burned low, its sweet scent fading. He found his way back through the tunnels, following the faint shaft of light from the entrance. At the surface, he blew out the candle and left the stub in the bronze bowl.

  Finished with his private looting, Izkhaael left the rest to the common soldiers. They stumbled through the streets drunk, waving bayonet-fixed muskets and singing bawdy songs. He made his way outside the city walls to his tent—a sergeant's quarters, not much better than a common soldier's but enough for some peace and quiet.

  Manzonéz was still in the city. The silence felt oppressive.

  Sweat beaded on Izkhaael's forehead as he removed his armor. Pain radiated from the purple bruise where the musket ball had struck his backplate. He winced, trying to push away the sounds echoing in his memory.

  He rummaged through his sack and opened the stolen wine. At the bottom of the bottle, he found silence. In the smoke of hashish, he found calm. His racing heart finally quieted.

  He closed his eyes and slept.

  A bell woke him at dawn.

  The men gathered where it sounded. Captain Marzebúan sat mounted on his destrier, looking down at the assembled troops. Izkhaael took his place among them.

  "By order of General Marzebúan," the captain announced, "this city—the last bastion of the pagan Emirate of Jamayyid—is to be made an example. Take the surviving Jamayyid and bind them with rope. Bring them to Vállefeld, where I shall instruct you further."

  He paused, scanning the faces below him.

  "Sergeants, you will each be assigned an entry point to search the temple complexes beneath the city. That's where they're hiding."

  Make an example of them. Izkhaael didn't need to think hard about what that meant. Usually, conquered peoples were left to the mercy of the road—forced to pay "Conversion taxes" to demonstrate devotion to the Guiding Light. The first tax alone stripped them of everything they owned.

  This would be worse.

  His unit drew the southernmost entry point. They searched the tunnels methodically and found several families huddled in hidden chambers. It was enough to satisfy their quota.

  Vállefeld was a beautiful grass field five miles south of Málgaran. Rich black soil shifted under Izkhaael's boots as they marched the prisoners across it. Then came the breeze, carrying a stench like week-old corpses.

  The condemned were forced to their knees in the center of the field.

  The soldiers formed a long line in an L-shape around them. From behind the formation, Captain Marzebúan raised his sword.

  "Ready!"

  Izkhaael's hands trembled around his musket's stock.

  "Aim!"

  He drew a bead on a woman clutching two small children.

  "Fire!"

  His finger lingered on the trigger for an eternal moment. Then he squeezed.

  The recoil echoed through his bones. He curled his lip against the taste of powder smoke.

  Screams bled through the white cloud that engulfed the field.

  He dropped to one knee and began reloading with practiced motions. Behind him, another soldier braced his musket on Izkhaael's shoulder and fired over his head. A lead ball slipped through Izkhaael's trembling fingers. He didn't bother picking it up.

  The killing continued in waves—reload, aim, fire, reload. Professional. Methodical.

  At the end, silence.

  All he could smell was gunpowder. It stung his eyes until tears beaded at the corners. The Jamayyid had been slaughtered like cattle—and if the soldiers were lucky, they'd die forgotten too.

  He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and stepped into line for his wages. Manzonéz appeared behind him with his usual grin.

  "Had a week to think about it," Manzonéz said. "You reconsidered my offer?"

  Izkhaael sighed. "Yeah. Answer's still no."

  "Fair enough. Ain't for everyone." He paused, studying his friend's face. "Though you're not everyone."

  "I've been away from my father's work too long."

  "Bring them along. The Free Cities have space for skilled craftsmen." Manzonéz shrugged. "Good money in it."

  "They'd get eaten alive out there. They're not like me."

  "How would you know? Been seven years since you saw them."

  "I just want things to go back to how they were. Shelf all this madness. Lock it away in the corner of my mind."

  "No." Manzonéz shook his head firmly. "I see you, Izkhaael. You use my trick before battles—that smile to calm your nerves."

  He leaned closer, tapping below his own eye.

  "But your pupils dilate. Go black as sin. You feel it stirring, don't you? The hunger?"

  Izkhaael's jaw tightened. "I don't want to."

  "Pff. Whatever. Be a butcher for the rest of your life, then."

  They collected their wages and walked toward a nearby hill overlooking the killing field.

  "Izkhaael," Manzonéz said quietly, "do you remember Gazaré?"

  "Yeah. Your gun misfired and blew shrapnel into my face."

  "Did you have a choice in that happening?"

  Izkhaael sighed. "That's a stupid fucking argument."

  Manzonéz sat on the hillside, gazing down at Vállefeld. "Maybe. Still true, though."

  Reluctantly, Izkhaael sat beside him. "How so?"

  "How much do any of us really choose? Where we're born? Who we become? What shapes us?" He paused, meeting Izkhaael's eyes. "I know one thing about you for certain—you're a killer. It's what you'll always be."

  Izkhaael stared at the blood-soaked field below. "Then I guess when I'm forced to choose, we'll see what happens. But for now—I'm going home."

  Manzonéz nodded slowly. "Farewell, then. May fortune find you somehow."

  Izkhaael managed a faint smirk. "I'm sure you'll find plenty of it in the Free Cities. Goodbye, Manzonéz."

  His friend departed down the far side of the hill. Izkhaael remained, keeping vigil over the dead.

  Mercy was a bullet. The rest of us waited.